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MedImmune

biopharmaceutical company, acquired by AstraZeneca in 2007

Layered newspapers, civic records and oral-history reels arranged as chronological evidence
History and societyInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJul 25, 2026
Entity authorityQ1335294
Source-derived summary

MedImmune, LLC was a wholly owned subsidiary of AstraZeneca before February 14, 2019, when it was announced that the MedImmune name and branding would be discontinued in favor of AstraZeneca.

MedImmune was founded in 1988 as Molecular Vaccines, Inc, and was purchased in 2007 for $15.6 billion. Its main offices were located in Gaithersburg, MD, Cambridge, UK, and Mountain View, CA.

It produced Synagis, a drug for the prevention of respiratory infections in infants, which accounted for US$ 1.06 billion of its US$ 1.2 billion in revenue for 2005, and FluMist, a nasal spray influenza vaccine introduced in 2004. MedImmune acquired FluMist when it purchased Aviron in 2002 for US$ 1.5 billion. FluMist sales totaled US$ 104 million in 2008, US$ 54.8 million in 2007, and US$ 36.4 million in 2006.

FluMist was approved for children two years of age and older in 2007, but initially was approved only for healthy people ages 5 to 49, a significant limitation because it eliminated a significant market—young children who find injections objectionable. Sales of FluMist fell short of analysts' expectations for the first two years the drug was sold. FluMist was initially sold in a frozen form, which was difficult for doctors to store.

MedImmune conducted successful clinical trials for a new generation of FluMist needle-free vaccine, called CAIV-T, which was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 2007, and is now the form offered on the market.

History

Molecular Vaccines, Inc.

Editorial summary

“MedImmune” enters the record as biopharmaceutical company, acquired by AstraZeneca in 2007. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what MedImmune, biopharmaceutical and company can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewMost valuable as an event-and-institution map that identifies actors, dates and record creators for deeper historical inquiry. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—2019, 1988, 2007, 2005—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1988. Its strongest next move is a source search built around MedImmune, biopharmaceutical and company.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“MedImmune” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, MedImmune, biopharmaceutical and company provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

Chronology, provenance and viewpoint should be read together before a broad social or political interpretation is accepted. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 25, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1335294. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2019, 1988, 2007 and 2005.

Critical limits

Institutional narratives can privilege the records that survived while minimizing voices that were never formally collected. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Compare institutional narratives with records created by participants and affected communities. Dates and formal titles are useful anchors, but not substitutes for context.

Best used for
  • Event chronology
  • Institutional context
  • Locating named record creators
Verify next

Contemporary correspondence, government or organizational records, oral histories and cited historical scholarship.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “MedImmune”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow MedImmune primary sources, MedImmune archive and MedImmune research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “MedImmune”?
  2. Which voices are present, absent or mediated by the institution?
  3. What chronology connects this entry to wider political or social change?
Subject index

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from MedImmune” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.